Through the Prism of Slavery: Labor, Capital, and World Economy

This thoughtful book explores the contested relationship between slavery and capitalism. Tracing slavery's integral role in the formation of a capitalist world economy, Dale Tomich reinterprets the development of the world economy through the prism of slavery. Through a sustained critique of Marxism, world-systems theory, and new economic history, the author develops a new conceptual framework for answering theoretical and historical questions about the nexus between slavery and the world economy. Tomich's deft use of specific New World examples of slave production as local sites of global transformation highlights the influence of specific geographies and local agency in shaping different slave zones.